NBA star: Dinosaurs were pets for very big people
Commentary: Cleveland Cavaliers guard Jordan Clarkson continues his team's tradition of, well, interesting science.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
Clarkson in his Laker days, looking as if he just got dunked on by a very large human.
There's something in the air in Cleveland. Or it could be the water.
When you come to play basketball there, your view of the world -- and of science's role in it -- seems to enjoy an awakening.
For the longest time, the Cleveland Cavaliers' (now former) guard Kyrie Irving insisted the Earth is flat. Ultimately, he claimed this was a mere thought experiment.
Now, new arrival Jordan Clarkson, previously of the Los Angeles Lakers, has some interesting thoughts about dinosaurs.
Appearing on the Road Trippin' podcast this week with fellow Cavalier Larry Nance Jr., Clarkson was asked about things he doesn't believe in. (At around the 40-minute mark.)
DJ Montage, one of the presenters, doesn't believe in dinosaurs, Clarkson was told.
"I don't believe in dinosaurs either," Clarkson said. "Well no, I actually do. I believe that -- this is gonna get a little crazy, alright? I'm gonna take y'all a little left on this. OK, so y'all know how we got dogs and stuff, right?"
Are you still with him? Because this is going to get a little crazy.
"So, I think it was bigger people in the world before us, and, like, the dinosaurs was their pets," he said.
Naturally, he was asked how big people must have been in those days.
"Oh, you look at a dinosaur. They got to be three times bigger than them," Clarkson mused.
T-Rex was around 20 feet tall. Which means our ancestors may have been 60-footers. Goodness, would they have been good dunkers. Unless they put their backs out easily, I suppose.
I asked the Cavaliers for comment on some of its players' edgy approach to science and will update, should I hear. Perhaps, once you get to play for the team, a little trolling of the scientific community is de rigueur.
I hate, though, to throw academic science into the entertainment, but as my CNET colleague Mark Serrels recently reported, much is changing about our knowledge of dinosaurs.
The rate at which fossils are being found is rising exponentially. Who knows what they might reveal?
But even the bones that have been collected so far and displayed in museums occasionally have a certain realistic quality to them, don't they?
Of course, it could be that, as more unearthing is performed, scientists will also find fossils of extremely large humans.
Ancestors, perhaps, of Shaquille O'Neal, Arvydas Sabonis and other huge NBA legends.
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